A new paper published by Cong Liu et al. in Ecological Monographs reports on how agricultural activity and the associated habitat conversion affects organisms by using ants as a surrogate for all invertebrates. Specifically, the authors investigated the effects of conversion to rubber plantation on leaf-litter ant taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversities in Xishuangbanna in southeast China. They found a sharp decline in species richness and low beta diversity after the habitat conversion.
The original article can be found here and the article by the OIST media section on the paper can be found here
